Emma Fuhrmann, the Flower Mound actress who plays Adam Sandler’s daughter in Blended, has a couple of surprises in store for area moviegoers.

For openers, the 12-year-old plans to pop in at theaters throughout the area when the comedy opens Friday.

“We thought it might be fun to show up to introduce the movie or answer a few questions at the end,” she says.

The second surprise: Filmgoers are sure to do a double-take when they see her because Fuhrmann looks nothing like her character. She wears a hideous boyish wig in the movie.

“They were this close to making me cut my hair,” Fuhrmann says. “I would have done it. But when they said I didn’t have to, I was like, ‘Yes! Victory dance!’”

It would have been a travesty to chop off her long brown hair. Fuhrmann, a sixth-grader at Lakeland Christian Academy in Lewisville when not acting or auditioning, is eager for people to see the movie. “It’s hilarious and it has a lot of heart,” she promises.

What was it like, making a movie with big stars like Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore?

First of all, we were in South Africa for seven weeks, so that was incredible. Adam is the man on set. He has a say in almost everything to do with the movie. And he had us cracking up all the time, on and off set.

And Drew is so inspiring. She grew up in the industry, the way I am now. When she walks on set, everybody is touched by how happy and real she is. When I grow up, in my career, that’s how I want to be.

Did you get to enjoy South Africa while you were there working?

My family came with me so it was a lot of fun. The first day of shooting, monkeys came up and stole our food. Then they sat there watching us, almost daring us to tell them to leave. When we were taking pictures with the monkeys, Adam started photo-bombing us.

I also went to a lion park and I got to hold a baby lion and lie next to a cheetah. The cheetah was named Emma. She licked my hand. Now we’re besties.

Your character is named Espn. Does that tell us everything we need to know about her sports-loving dad?

Adam plays a sports fanatic ... so of course he names his middle daughter Espn, after the sports network. I think it’s cute.

But the haircut, what can I say? It’s supposed to be ugly. He’s a single dad who does not know how to raise girls. One day, there was a guy on set who didn’t know me and said, ‘Excuse me, young man.’ He felt bad when he when he found out I’m a girl, but that was the goal with that wig.

How did you discover your love of acting?

I started modeling when I was very young. I started taking acting classes when I was 5. My first audition [in 2007] was for a Dallas Morning News commercial and I got the role. I did some TV shows that were made in Dallas [The Good Guys and Chase]. Then I booked a movie, The Magic of Belle Isle, with Morgan Freeman. That’s when it sunk in. I was like, “I’m in love with this. I want to continue to do this.”

Are you ever star-struck by your famous co-stars?

They’re just real people and we’re all doing the same work, so they’re not intimidating at all. If I met One Direction, that would be different. I would be, like, heart attack!

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